


cause you like me when I'm treating you wrong

by amberwoods



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, New Year's Eve, Post-Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 20:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13015578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwoods/pseuds/amberwoods
Summary: Normally, New Year’s Eve was one of Percy's favourite holidays of the year: he’d go home, spend the night with his parents, chide his brothers (and Ginny – especially Ginny) for misusing fireworks and get out some of his favourite whiskey for the occasion. Today, however, when he had heard about the recent developments in Tracey Davis’ case, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from running straight over to Pansy’s as soon as he could, regulations and holidays be damned.





	cause you like me when I'm treating you wrong

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song headspace by thomston

She chuckles when he steps inside and his eyes immediately find her. She’s radiant in the dark room, smoke circling up from a long cigarette between her fingers and her glossy black hair in a loose French twist. A muscle in his jaw twitches, but he refuses to step down.

“Let me guess,” she coos while she smooths towards him. He can’t seem to look away from her eyes – so dark, so full of _life._

Everything he’s ever wanted. Everything he shouldn’t want.

She presses her hand against his chest when she reaches him, slowly wrapping her hand around his tie and tugging ever so softly, just enough for him to feel it, but not enough to pull him down. Her nails are perfectly done – painted pitch black.

“You came back for seconds.”

She sounds delighted and he’s still trying to remember how to speak. Before he can, she continues.

“I have to say, I’m glad to see you again.” She releases her grip on his tie and smooths it back over his shirt, her hand setting fire to him. He can feel her through his shirt. “It would have been a shame if we couldn’t have continued where we left off last time.”

And she’s _mocking_ him, she’s _playing_ with him and he _loves_ it, it makes him want to do _everything_ to her.

And she _knows._

“Miss Parkinson,” he says briskly

She nods, still smiling. “Percival.”

“I told you to stay out of trouble.”

Her eyes widen in mock-innocence. “But Percival! Trouble is my middle name.”

He manages to scoff and takes and then sends her a levelling look. “You live up to it. It’s bothersome.”

She chuckles at that, smacking his chest playfully. “I think you like it.”

“What I’d _like_ ,” he manages to wring out of himself, “Is for you to stop sabotaging our investigation.”

She sighed and turned away, sending the other people in the room meaningful looks. “Nonsense,” she says, “I would never obstruct the law.”

The people around her smile, but they keep quiet. However Pansy may act, they are in a precarious position with Auror Percy Weasley here. He would bet that half the stuff they’re having here is illegal.

It’s not Pansy Parkinson’s elite bar for nothing.

“ _Pansy_ ,” he bites out now, irritation clear in his voice, “The papers we found at miss Davis’ were obviously forged. Your handiwork.”

“ _If_ anyone were to forge Tracey Davis’ papers…” She lingers for a moment, looking at him from over her shoulder and sending him a riotous smile. “I’m sure they did so for good reasons.”

“Like money,” he spat out disgustedly.

The fire he loved so much rose in Pansy’s eyes and within seconds she was on him, her hand pulling him down by the knot of his tie now, bringing his face level with hers and mostly very, _very_ , close.

“I know you have had your difficulties with figuring out where your loyalties lie, Mr Weasley. But Tracey is my _friend_. And, disregarding any of the ridiculous and _unsubstantial_ allegations you’re making, it’s a damn _travesty_ that she needs to cough up all her family heirlooms for the ministry.”

Percy kept his face blank, although he couldn’t control the turmoil in his eyes. He agreed with her, to some extent. The ministry was being extravagantly hard on the purebloods who had sided with Voldemort during the war. But considering the objects that had become Voldemort’s horcruxes, they could not afford to leave a stone unturned at the moment.

Were they being stricter with the Slytherins? Yes. Was it unfair? _Yes._ But did they have reason to? Yes.

_She_ should know. He knew all about where her loyalties had lain.

“It’s temporary,” he said.

She tsked at him and backed away, removing her hands from him. “It’s bullshit.”

“Is it?” He kept his voice calm, but there was an intensity to it that she couldn’t ignore. “Can you really say it is that illogical? _You?_ ”

She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye defiantly. “I have never obscured where my loyalties lie.”

“And that is where, exactly?”

“With my family,” she threw at him haughtily.

“And that is _who_ , exactly?” he hissed out through his teeth, trying to keep up some resemblance of control.

She hesitated at that. It was a difficult question. _Her relatives? Her friends? All Slytherins?_

She looked at him suspiciously, taking him in. _Others too?_

In the momentary silence, she suddenly noticed that the tension in the room didn’t just come from them. The others around her were glaring at Percy after his last comment on the validity of the measures that were being taken.

Pansy grabbed Percy’s arm and dragged him to the door. “I need some air,” she said.

Percy was stiff as a board under her touch, but he let her lead him into the evening air. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw the hostility in her companions’ eyes. He had been too focused on her to notice. In surprise, he looked at the woman beside him.

The scene outside was beautiful – snow was piled high in the London alley and the sky was clear. People were already gathering on the main streets and he saw the warm light of sparklers in the hands of children. Normally, New Year’s Eve was one of his favourite holidays of the year: he’d go home, spend the night with his parents, chide his brothers (and Ginny – especially Ginny) for misusing fireworks and get out some of his favourite whiskey for the occasion. Today, however, when he had heard about the recent developments in Tracey Davis’ case, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from running straight over to Pansy’s as soon as he could, regulations and holidays be damned.

Now, Pansy practically threw him against the cold wall, crossing her arms and staring him down defiantly. There was a challenge in her eyes as she waited for him to call her out on what just happened – that she had protected him. He opened his mouth to do it, but then closed it again, a bit shaken. It gave him the time to look her over and he immediately noticed the goose bumps on her bear arms.

Without a word, he took off his coat and stepped towards her, draping it over her shoulder. The action locked her in his arms and now he was the one waiting for her to scorn and mock – but she didn’t. She just looked at him, tight-lipped and frowning, and suddenly he got the feeling that they were on the verge of something.

They had been dancing around each other for months now. Meeting her had been the highlight of his year, even if it initially highlighted a lot of frustration and teeth-grinding. Dealing with Pansy was like dismantling a bomb – only every time he thought he had managed, another thread would turn up and he could start all over again. She was full of surprises, endlessly brave – during the war, she had been unable to master her fear and, as though she was repenting for it, she now put all of her Parkinson fire into protecting her loved ones in the post-war world.

He admired her, he wanted her, she pulled him into a whirlwind of emotions that he didn’t want to get out of, but they had never, _never_ , come this close to honesty.

This. Standing outside of her bar with his coat around her shoulders, quietly protecting each other as they came dangerously close to admitting where their loyalties now lay.

He could have arrested her a dozen times already. He didn’t – this hung in the air between them. She could have avoided seeing him altogether, could have been far more discrete. She hadn’t – this hung in the air between them. In the cold, snowy, December air.

And as a testament to their natural sense for timing, voices rose up all over time to count down the end of the year.

They still didn’t look away from each other. Pansy could hear the voices of her friends and dubious acquaintances coming from inside, and a part of her wanted to join them. But that same part wanted to take Percy’s hand and drag him in with her, ignoring all history and reality, and have him laugh with Adrian and Graham as they had beers and welcomed the New Year. She wondered when she had started wanting that. She wondered if, in another world, she had that tonight.

And a tiny part of her wondered if, maybe, she could have that next year.

“Happy new year!”

The voices came from everywhere, and Percy was still looking at her, that beautiful frown between his eyes.

And, like a wish upon a star, like a wish, period, wishing for change and for realness and anything that would let her keep this moment, she took Percy’s face in her hands and pressed herself up on her toes, catching his lips in a kiss that was far more tender than she had so often imagined their first one to be like.

He kept his hands on the collar of his coat, tightening them, and still saw the rising fireworks as he closed his eyes and leaned into her.

This meant something. It had to mean something.

When she let him go and looked at him, he believed that she felt the same way. But it wasn’t that simple. Not yet.

“I was not giving up my New Year’s kiss just because you decided to be an eloquent jackass,” she told him, her voice soft and just a tad breathless, but with the familiar sarcasm lurking just underneath.

“You’re a menace,” he said, but his voice was soft and breathless too.

She pulled away from him, replacing his hands with her own to hold the coat against herself, and moved back towards the door of her bar. “You’re not getting any intel off of me tonight, Weasley. Go home.”

He nodded towards his coat. “Don’t you think I need that more than you?”

Her eyes glinted in the light of the fireworks as she sent him a mischievous look that had just a hint of sincerity beneath it. “Come back for it tomorrow.”

“I’ll come back for it today.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll probably be hungover.”

“That’ll just give me the edge.”

Pansy smiled. “Who’s the menace now?”

With that, she opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind her. Percy was left in the snow with the irrepressible mocking voice of his brother in his head, saying that _they deserved each other_.

 


End file.
